David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)

It is amazing to hear Government Ministers and Deputies coming in here one after the other to say how fantastic it was to able to give increased payments to people on disability, carers and people who are blind during the past number of years. They seem to justify the current cutbacks by pointing to the increases which were given in the past. Are they saying the increases given in the past were wrong, not needed or unjust and are now being taken back? I am sure they would not agree with that question. What has changed?

Obviously, there are major economic difficulties out there. However, the Government has made a choice to target people with disabilities, carers and people who are blind in this budget. I was shocked when I saw this happening. I could not believe it when I saw it in the Budget Statement and thought it could not be true. We have had many debates on people with disabilities and the problems they face. The Central Statistics Office maintains that the risk of poverty for people with disabilities is 37% higher than the rest of the population. Some 55% of people who are at risk of poverty live in households headed by a person who is outside the labour force, that is, a person in a caring role, a person suffering from a disability or an older person.

People with disabilities already face a number of higher costs. The National Disability Authority proposed a number of years ago that an extra cost of disability allowance be given to people with disabilities. This was not done, even though it has been called for time out of number. What has the Government done? It has decided, instead of giving extra money in the budget, to take it away. It justifies the measure by saying it gave a lot of money in the past and now it can take it away. That is cock-eyed logic which does not make sense. The money and support involved were needed in the past and should not be taken away now. It was the right thing to do then and the wrong thing to do now.

Before I came into the House I spoke to a carer who is caring for her husband who is in a wheelchair. They are angry and very worried because of the shift in the policy of the Government. Until now, this House was united in the need to look after the most vulnerable in our society, but that has now changed. The Government has decided to target these people and take from them what they need the most.

The Minister of State with responsibility for equality, disability issues and mental health, Deputy John Moloney, spoke some time ago about the national disability strategy. He is very sincere and hardworking. However, the national disability strategy has been abandoned and no longer exists. It was composed of the Disability Act and the Education of Persons with Special Educational Needs Act, which have been postponed indefinitely. They were the two central planks in the strategy. I was involved in the debates here and the passing of the Acts by this House. We worked very hard on them and many people came into the House to make presentations on them.

The personal advocacy service, which was due to come into place in 2008 to assist people who were blind and suffering from intellectual disabilities and autism in accessing services, has been abandoned. In March this year, the national carers strategy, which was promised for many years, was abandoned. A review has been set up, but where is the strategy? It does not exist. Let us stop fooling people. Let us not trot out all these Acts, etc. Deputy Cyprian Brady, who just left, mentioned the Disability Act. Perhaps the Minister of State opposite might let him know at some stage that it has now been postponed indefinitely and that, effectively, it does not exist anymore.

We were told that the multi-annual investment programme consisted of €900 million from 2006 to 2009. I challenge the Minister of State opposite and any other Minister to lay before the House a detailed account of what has happened to that money. I have been trying for some time, but cannot get it. Much of it has been diverted and much of it may never have existed. I have asked for information on it through parliamentary questions and other debates; it does not seem to exist. I believe something is really wrong there. In his report, the Comptroller and Auditor General criticised the HSE on this issue. He said that the accounting procedures were all wrong. It is serious if all that money was supposed to have been provided and it was not pinpointed for people with disabilities. It is now impacting on services that were supposed to have been provided to people with disabilities.

By cutting the money people are getting, the Government is imposing further hardship on them. A lot of sleight of hand is going on here. What do we get? In spite of all the debates we have and all the legislation that was introduced, the Government has abandoned all that and set up another review. My concern is that this review will be solely about cutting back further on funding and support for people with disabilities instead of cutting back on the quangos the Government has established. It puts all its friends on boards and pays them large sums of money just because, as the former Taoiseach said, they were his friends. The policy and philosophy that exists on the other side of the House is to see whom it can put on a particular board and give him or her bonuses, directors' fees and all the rest of it. It has no difficulty taking money from people with disabilities so that these people can get all this money.

Many of the organisations that are doing considerable good work are finding the cutbacks are already impinging greatly on the work they are doing. I call on the Government to reconsider. People with disabilities and their carers cannot protest outside here because in this weather they cannot get away to do it. The Government knew what it was doing and knew that if it targeted these people they would not protest in the middle of winter. It was the one group it could really hit and get away with it. That is what it did and it is an appalling shame. Of all the choices it could have made, this was the wrong one.

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